I recently acquired this book from Crusader Trading, having 'browsed' it several times. A large book (oversized A4 at 310 x220mm) it has an eye-catching cover using Horace Vernet's famous painting of Napoleon at Jena. The colourful cover gives a hint of the graphic riches contained within. This book is one of the richest illustrated studies of one of Napoleon's greatest victories that I have ever seen. The graphics are all of a uniformly high quality and grace every page in glorious colour. The printing and binding cannot be faulted, both are of the highest standard, although I do have one criticism of its presentation (a minor one) on the choice of typeface for the text. It's an elongated serif face usually found in decorative text and not one I have encountered before as the main text typeface for a book. Typeface aesthetics aside, this book is well set out and as before, the balance of graphics to text is very attractively done. "Jena Auerstaedt" is a French book written by one F.-G. Hourtoulle and translated by Alan McKay. Mssr. Hourtoulle is part of 'Histoire & Collections', a French group specialising in history, particularly the Napoleonic variety. Reference to them can be found through the "Histoireet Cerce" website: www. histofig.com Being a French book, written by a Frenchman, it naturally depicts things from a very French perspective, albeit without some of the more histrionic French chest-thumping that other French Napoleonic authors have been guilty of. On balance it gives a well-rounded summary of the events leading up to as well as the course and aftermath of both major battles and a number of the lesser known encounters. Of particular value is the wealth of uniform information for both the French and Prussian armies. These are copiously illustrated in simple but effective artwork by Andre Jouineau of Histoire & Collections. They depict the uniforms worn by virtually each unit at every major encounter of the campaign. This makes it of particular interest to wargamers and modellers, as great attention has been paid to the detail of all the uniforms of both armies. It was this that first attracted me to the book as it was the most comprehensive illustration of Prussian army uniforms of that era that I have yet seen. All are full-colour plates and the colour reproduction is quite superb. Another 'bonus' are the many detailed and well presented maps. There is one for every encounter and grand tactical maps showing manoeuvring at a Corps and divisional level as well as more detailed ones showing movements of individual brigades and units at different times. Other detail that the author has included (perhaps a trifle unnecessarily) are the casualty returns for each French unit at each of the respective battles including brief histories o f the career and fate of many of the officers (and even some NCO's) of these units. While interesting to see some names that were to become famous later in the Napoleonic Wars, it has only passing relevance to the telling of the tale of these two battles. Perhaps its just the French manner of being so introspective about anything French, thankfully the accounts of the battles themselves and their aftermath are not as self-indulgent or biassed. While the manner of expression used by the author could be considered more conversational than scholarly (more of an 'Elting' in style than a 'Chandler') - perhaps this is a good thing as it gets away from the many 'dry' accounts that abound - in any event it certainly covers just about everything that needs to be covered. Perhaps it's the way certain types of more colloquial French expressions are translated - who knows? What I do know is that it is by any measure a beautiful book and will take pride of place in my humble collection of Napoleonic reference books. At $49.95 it is not a cheap book by any means but when one considers the enormous wealth of visual material included (and most in glorious colour too) it compares very well with other books on this period. The visual standard of this book cannot be praised too highly - it rivals the Osprey series (and in some instances surpasses them) in this aspect and, as I have said before, the printing standard is also of the highest quality. Get your copy through Crusader Trading now - one of the many (and growing) list of Napoleonic titles they have available and one of several French books that have not previously been available in the English language. Back to Table of Contents -- Kriegspieler #8 To Kriegspieler List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Kriegspieler Publications. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com